Michigan Men’s Soccer is coming off an 8-6-4 season which saw them miss the NCAA Tournament for the third straight year.

Returners

Defensively, Michigan was very good last year and returns most of the squad. Senior’s Lars Eckenrode, Andre Morris and Rylee Woods provide leadership along the back line while Billy Stevens, Peter Brown and Marcello Borges will also make significant contributions. Borges just returned from the U-20 National Team Camp in New Jersey and is a defender at heart but may play both winger and outside back once again in his second season in Ann Arbor.

In midfield, sophomore Ivo Cerda will look to continue to impress and has been named a pre-season All B1G performer by the Coaches.

Also returning for his Junior season is goalkeeper Evan Louro, who was arguably the team’s MVP last season and was second in the Big Ten in save percentage. Louro is arguably one of the best 5-10 goalkeepers in the NCAA and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was his last season at Michigan.

Amanda Allen / Michigan Daily

2015 B1G Ten Freshman of the year and All B1G Ten selection Francis Atuahene features up top for Michigan after his freshman season saw him score ten goals, which was second in the conference and a First Team All B1G selection. Atuahene is the best pure attacking talent Michigan has had in years and he’ll score plenty of goals this season.

MGoBlue.com

However, Michigan loses Colin McAtee, Will Mellors-Blair and James Murphy, who accounted for 13 goals last season. The only other two guys who scored at all last season are Cerda and RS Junior midfielder Michael Kapitula. Simply put, Michigan must find other attacking options besides Atuahene.

Freshmen

Chaka Daley brought in five freshmen in this year’s class, including forward Jack Hallahan, who has played for West Brom’s U18 and Ireland’s U19 team and figures to see significant playing time in Daley’s 4-3-3 formation. Additionally, Abdou Samake, a 6’3 defender joins Michigan after being with the Montreal Impact U18 team. Goalkeeper Andrew Verdi and midfielders Lucas Rosendall and Joe Hertgen round out the 2016 recruiting class.

Schedule

Michigan faces another difficult schedule this season, as it has each of Daley’s years in charge. However, missing from 2016’s schedule are Akron and Creighton, two perennial top ten schools.

Michigan starts off the season on a road trip to #19 USF and Florida Gulf Coast. Visiting Central Florida in August should be an interesting fitness test and both matches against Florida Man can be found on ESPN3. A visit from Notre Dame highlights the rest of the non-conference schedule.

Michigan’s Big Ten schedule is favorable, with Indiana, Penn State Ohio State and Maryland at home and while Michigan State, Rutgers and Wisconsin figure to be the difficult road trips. Rutgers is actually good at soccer and Michigan has a bunch of New Jersey natives on the roster so The War on Rutgers lives on (or something).

The Big Ten was solid a year ago with Maryland being within penalties kicks of beating Clemson and going to the College Cup, Indiana made it the Quarterfinals, Ohio State lost to eventual Champions Jordan Morris and Stanford and even Rutgers made it into the second round before losing to powerhouse Akron.

Michigan is ranked fifth in the B1G Preseason Coaches’ Poll behind Maryland, Indiana, Ohio State and Rutgers. This shouldn’t be surprising but I believe there’s reason to be cautiously optimistic.

Freshman midfielder Francis Atuahene continued his torrid scoring pace with his 10th goal of the season, providing the Wolverines the only tally they needed. Atuahene struck in the 50th minute off a crisp pass from senior forward William Mellors-Blair."

I and my cohosts at the Detroit City FC Fancast podcast sat down with Michigan Soccer seniors and Detroit City FC alumni Colin McAtee, Will Mellors-Blair, James Murphy and T.J. VanSlooten for a discussion about their time at City, their experiences at Michigan and what they're looking forward to in the upcoming season.

The class is headlined by Francis Atuahene, ranked #13 in the country by CollegeSoccerNews.com (4 star), Midfielder Robbie Mertz, the Pennsylvania Gatorade Player of the Year in 2014 (13 goals, 26 assists last season) and defender Marcello Borges, who is on the U-18 NY Red Bulls and U-18 US National Team.

Additionally, they snagged a backup for Evan Louro in Pitt Transfer Braden Horton, a former DC United U-23 team member. He played once last season on and obtained a medical redshirt and will have sophomore eligibility. Peter Brown, a defender (Walker, MI/Kenowa Hills/GR Crew) is a Top 150 player per CollegeSoccerNews.com as well. He was also Kenowa Hills Throwball Kicker, too.

Michigan fell behind after just 26 seconds to OSU last night in Ann Arbor on Senior Night. A Ben Manko goal in the 31st minute after Tyler Arnone's penalty attempt was saved tied the match at one. However, OSU went ahead in the 85th minute after an odd bouncing ball found its way past RS Senior Adam Grinwis for the Buckeye win.

Michigan needed a win and an Indiana loss (which they did, 3-2 to MSU in Bloomington) to secure a 1st round home match in the B1G Tourney. With the loss, they'll now have to travel to Columbus for a rematch with OSU on Sunday at 1pm. Maryland won the regular season title by beating Rutgers 3-2 last night in New Jersey. If Michigan beats OSU on Sunday, they'll play the winner of Northwestern and Indiana (also on the road, no matter who wins).